When on my little Babes I think, as I do oft, I cannot chuse but then let fall some tears; Me-thinks I hear the little Pratler, with words soft, Ask, Where is Father that did promise Pears, And other knacks, which I did never see, Nor Father neither, since he promised me. 'Tis true, my Babe, thou never saw'st thy Father since, Nor art thou ever like to see again: That stopping Father into mischief which will pinch The tender Bud, and give thee cause to plain His hard dysaster; that must punish thee, Who art from guilt as any creature free. But oh! when she that bare thee, Babe, comes to my mind, Then do I stand as drunk with bitterest woe, To think that she, whose worth were such to all, should find Such usage hard, and I to cause the blow, Of her such sufferance, that doth pierce my heart, And gives full grief to every other part. Hence comes the cause, that each tear striveth to be first, As if I meant to stint them of their course, No salted meats: that done you know my heart would burst With violent assaults of your great force: But when I stay you, 'tis for that I fear, Your gushing so will leave me ne'er a tear. But ah! this doubt, grief says I never need to fear For she will undertake t'afford me store; Who in all her knowledge never cause of woe did hear That gall'd her deeper or gave witness more Of earth's hard usage, that does punish those That guiltless be, with Fortune's cruellest blows. Though further cause of more than utterable grief, As other's loss I could dilate at large, Which I am cause of, yet her suffering being chief Of all their woes, that sail in this deep Barge Of sorrow's Sea: I cannot but reflect Hereon more deeply, and with more respect. On which dear object when I look with grieved mind, Such store of pities see I plead her case, As hardest hearts cause of compassion there would find; To hear what could be said before that face Which I have wrong'd in causing so to weep; The grief whereof constrains my pen to sleep. The trial of the prisoners was long delayed; quite ten weeks passed between their capture and their sentence; but, as Mr Hepworth Dixon puts it,[368] they were, in fact, "undergoing a course of daily trial by Northampton in the Tower." In the so-called gunpowder plot room, in the Lieutenant's House, with its panelled walls, and high, wide window, they underwent "a thousand interrogatories from Coke, a thousand hostilities from Waad, and a thousand treacheries from Forsett. This Forsett was one of Northampton's spies; a useful and despicable wretch, whom his master employed in overhearing and reporting the private conversations of prisoners with each other." [368] _Her Majesty's Tower_, Vol. ii. p. 193.